Covens of witches with all of their hosts,
You may think they scare me you're probably right,
Black cats and goblins on Halloween night...
Halloween means different things to different people. There are those who loathe the entire enterprise and can't wait for it to end. There are those who build a bonfire and run naked around it hoping to connect with druid overlords. Those are the extremes. Most of us enjoy it for the bit of fun that it is and every now and again something happens... a smell, a noise... but every year something happens to remind me of that feeling I had as a kid when the day arrived. I loved the whole thing because I was all about ghosts and monsters and the promise of sweets didn't hurt either. These days we put up the decorations and come Halloween night we hand out sweets to kids who are just as excited about Halloween as we are! I used to hand out treats wearing a Michael Myers mask. I've had to downgrade to a Jason Voorhees mask because the Michael Myers one was too scary for some of the kids. True story!
It is a horrifying mask
Michael Myers took a thoroughly enjoyable night for a kid and made it terrifying. But then, that was the point wasn't it? We wanted something to scare us and it never really did. It was the hope of being scared by something that made it special. When Michael Myers finally delivered on the promise I didn't sleep properly for a long time! And, of course, I loved every second.
I'll try not to beam about Halloween in a technical way because it's been done to death. Rather, I'll tell you how I came to see it for the first time and how that impacted on me.
Finglas, Dublin 1982
Halloween hit cinemas in 1978 and aired on television in 1980 but I was too young to know about it. However in 1982 at the tender age of 6 (coincidentally the same age Michael committed his first murder) my oldest brother, Colin, was bragging about watching it on Saturday night (Oct 30th) while the rest of us (my other brother and two sisters) would be in bed and my parents were on a date night. Now, by this stage I'd already seen Jaws and had become a bit of a Hammer Horror fan. I figured this couldn't be any scarier... So after listening for the umpteenth time to my brother's continued bragging, I went to my parents and asked could I stay up and watch it. In fairness to them, they played it perfectly. They didn't make a big deal out of it, just said "No, maybe next year" and told me to be in bed by 9pm. If they'd made a big deal out of it, I'd have snuck down but, like I said, they played it cool and it went off my radar... Until about 10pm...
I was tucked up in bed on the edge of sleep when I had my first experience of John Carpenter's Halloween. The scariest score in cinematic history was 5/4ing its way into my semi conscious state and after a few bars of it I heard my brother shout up the stairs at me, "Graham, do you want to come down to watch it? Mam and Dad will never know." This wasn't Colin doing me a favour. Oh no! Colin's role as the oldest brother was torturer and chief. But I heard something in his voice... he was pleading. The fact was, the opening of the movie had frightened him and he wanted company... any company. Even me. His youngest brother. My company was never requested, unless there was a trick involved. There was never a treat at the end of Colin requesting my presence. So that, coupled with the terrifying music, I did what any self respecting 6 year old would do... I pretended to be asleep. To Colin's credit, he stayed down stairs and watched the whole fucking thing. Poor guy was bombarded with questions from all of us the following day. He answered all of them. His use of description made me want to see it...
Blanchardstown, Dublin 1984
Back in the 80's when a big movie was shown on television, it was a genuine treat. We didn't have a VCR so screenings of Super-man and its sequel, Jaws and its sequel, Star Wars, Indiana Jones etc. were to be savoured. They generally didn't hit the television until Christmas time and part of me misses the feeling of excitement I'd get when RTE, BBC and UTV would show adds for their Christmas movies. Halloween was no exception. It was a movie that everyone was talking about but I suspect only half the people had the balls to actually watch and even though it was made in 1978 it was still a huge talking point in the mid 80's. I kept my mouth shut when I saw the television listings in the paper on October 27th 1984. There it was. I forget what channel it was on but there it was and I already knew my parents were going out. Off they went about 9pm and I was watching the movie with my sister and a friend of hers by about 10pm. It won't come as a surprise to anyone to read that it scared the living piss out of me! I'll attach some of the shots throughout this blog that stayed in my head and haunted my dreams for years after. Starting with this one:
Michael watching Laurie in school
As previously stated many people were still going without VCR's in the mid 80's. We just didn't have the money. Times weren't particularly tough but disposable income was minimal. This is why days like Halloween were such a treat. They truly were (and still are) a great distraction from the norm and while I was really, quite badly frightened by the movie I was also instantly obsessed. Of course by the time I got to see Halloween, the sequel had been doing the rounds since 1981 but I'll come back to that. I began reading the television section in the papers every Saturday in the hope that it'd be on television again. The following year, I was certain I'd get a screening... I got The Fog. I was so disappointed that Halloween wasn't on but as it happened, The Fog turned out to be a whole lot of fun and absolutely dripping with atmosphere. It didn't impact on me the way Halloween did but it was certainly more treat than trick.
Michael watching Annie and Laurie
It was about this time that I started looking at who was making these movies. Names like Irwin Yablans, Deborah Hill, Moustapha Akkad, Tommy Lee Wallace and of course John Carpenter were in my head, ingrained into my brain like a tattoo on grey matter. The Fog and Halloween shared most of these names and so my curiosity grew. Who were these people? Again, back then, information like this was at a premium in Ireland and it wasn't until I hit my teens and started buying movie magazines that I got to know a bit about them. But for years they were heroes of mine and I knew nothing about them. Imagine the frustration! Even now, when I see any of these names it triggers something in me. Just a tiny feeling in my gut to remind me that at one point, seeing these names on my television screen meant the fucking world to me.
It was probably about 1986 when I first got to see Halloween 2. I've managed to stay away from the technical prowess of Halloween so I'll try to do the same about Halloween 2's shortcomings. It's not that it's bad, it's just that it's ever so slightly lazy at times. Still, at 10 years of age I didn't give a shit about lazy writing or excessive gore! I was getting another Myers movie and truly nothing else mattered. By now, my parents had accepted that their youngest boy loved movies and in particular he loved horror movies. They had let me watch The Fog so they let me watch this. And it was fine. I mean, I was scared... just not "oh my fucking God Michael Myers is going to come in the window and get me" scared. I'd been out to visit my grandad that day and I dared him to watch it. On the phone the following day I asked him if he had watched it. "I did son." "And did it scare you?" "Not really son." We talked for a while about the movie. I was testing him to see if he had actually watched it. Afterwards I told my Mam about the chat and she reminded me that grandad had fought in World War 2. He'd seen a lot worse and up close. As for me, I was getting far too used to slasher flicks for one so young. Halloween 2 served as a nice little addition to "the night he came home" and I was satisfied when I watched it.
Which way is he looking?
A Franchise on the wane
By the time Halloween 4 came out it was 1989 and I was positively gagging to see it. Halloween 3 was a fun movie but had nothing to do with Michael Myers or Haddonfield. Part 4, however, had Michael Myers all over the advertising. It was called Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and once again an older brother would get the drop on me. My other brother Gavin was also a fan of horror so he was very excited to see the movie. I was 13 years old. No way would I get into an 18s movie! So off Gav went. He didn't brag. He didn't make a song or dance about it. He just went, came home and assured me I wouldn't be disappointed by it. I had to wait for what seemed like an eternity for it to come to video but finally it arrived and Gav went out and rented it for the whole family. I fucking LOVED it! Now, as I've gotten older I can see the many flaws in the movie but at that age this movie was just what I was looking for. Halloween was still such a hoot for me and this was something else to add to the list of things I loved about the day. Did it scare me? Not really, but I found it to be more effective than I expected and I've since seen it on the big screen where it holds up reasonably well.
Laurie finds Annie
Best and worst of the rest
The rest of the Halloween franchise is hit and miss. H5, to my delight, came out a year after 4 and again at that age it was the absolute bollocks! Notice as I got older it stopped being about the scares and started being about fun. H6 took its time but when it did come out I was all over it. Again, I can see the hideous flaws now but I enjoyed it well enough at the time. It wasn't well received though and forced a reboot of sorts. Halloween H:20 disregarded H4, 5 and 6. When it came out I was 22 years old and I was excited to see this 20 year anniversary movie with Jamie Lee Curtis back to take on the scariest of all the horror icons. It's a solid movie made by people who care about this material. Its follow up was made by people who don't and is so bad that it buried the franchise and forced a full on remake. Enter Rob Zombie. He made two movies. The first, a remake of the original and the other was a direct sequel to that. Both movies are a source of much debate. I'm kind of torn about them. There are things I like and there are things I don't. Truth be told, 1981's Halloween 2 got by on the fumes of the original classic and everything since then has been poor by comparison.
Don't Fear The Reaper
The older I get the less time I have to look back at these memories. That's not sadness, that's just a fact of life. However, music is a powerful thing. How many times have you heard a song and suddenly found yourself remembering something you hadn't thought about in years? The first time I ever heard Don't Fear The Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult was in Halloween. Whenever I hear it I always think of Laurie and Annie in a car, smoking a joint, being tailed by Michael Myers... Every. Single. Time! And every time I hear that Halloween theme I have access to so many memories of Halloween's past. Not just the movies or the anticipation of watching the original that night as a kid. But as a teenager sitting around a bonfire with friends. Or drinking in town and realising Halloween is a spectacularly unsafe night to go drinking in Dublin City! Or doing a horror themed pubcast with my buddy Wayne Talbot. Or playing a gig in a bar in Rathmines dressed as "ghostface" from Scream... There are a lot of memories.
As for the waning franchise? Well, up next is Halloween Returns however, just this week the project was put on hold while the writers and the producers come to terms with the arrival of "new partners" (probably Platinum Dunes) who weren't entirely sold on the direction the movie was taking. Hard to know if this is a good thing or not. While Platinum Dunes movies make money, their quality is, well, questionable. This is all conjecture though, they may not be involved at all. What is certain is, whatever adventures lay ahead for Michael Myers, I will be in the cinema watching and once that classic theme hits I'll be consumed by a wave of nostalgia.
Happy Halloween everyone.
Cheers,
G.
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